I agree with those who said that the Brisbane crowd didn't seem too enthusiastic. One man sitting next to me appeared to be so bored that he actually pulled out his mobile phone and started playing with it mid-concert!

LOL unbelievable! That takes me back to when I saw The Cure in BrisVegas (for the Wish Tour in '92). I'm ashamed to say that my mates boyfriend actually feel asleep in his seat! He wasn't a Cure fan, and I still have no idea why he came along really (maybe an insecurity thing... not trusting my mate to be loyal to him or some crap?? Who knows with men!!! LOL, no offence meant - really!). That was terrible as it brought the mood down... I ended up leaving my seat anyway and dancing in the isle! I had a good view of the stage too, and really liked the pattern of the stage floor... Did anyone else that went to the 1992 gig take any photos? I wasn't rich enough to own a camera back then... and digital ones weren't around as far as I knew. most def. no camera phones!!! LOL - my god, how OLD do I sound??????? Where's my walking stick?

Steve convinced me to tell my failed recording story. This way anyone who intends to tape a show, and has never done it before, won't make the same mistakes I did:

Read on my friends....

This is my Brisbane story....

I was pretty broke at the time but I managed to get my hands on a Sony MD recorder. I managed to buy some Giant Squid mics and a battery box via the net for a cheap price very close to the concert date and was stressing that the mics wouldn't arrive in time. they did. i got all the gear home and started to test it. the recording level settings on the MD recorder worried me somewhat as i didn't get time to go to a practice gig or concert due to lack of time and funds..

I had a bit of trouble with the recorder recognizing blank discs. there was a problem witht the thing that goes into or not [whatever the case may be] in the hole where it recognizes a protected or not protected disc.. managed to fix that with some more creative use of sticky tape.

I got hold of some dodgy old sunglasses that I planned to clip the mics on and practised a bit at home to get it all right.. [It turns out that the sunglasses idea was crap so I took my spectacles along instead]. The day of the concert arrives and readied myself. I coiled up all the cables and wrapped them in sticky tape so when the time came I could unravel the cables easily. I put on two pairs of jocks [I had practised walking "all loaded" for a bit and it was ok!], my jeans two t-shirts and my leather jacket - which is lined against the cold... I put the MD, mics, battery box, binoculars and two bottles of soft drink into a black plastic bag. there was no way i was travelling too far with all the gear pantsed..

The Brisbane Entertainment Centre is not conveniently located unlike it's Sydney and Melbourne counterparts.. We had to catch a bus to the city - 10 mins, then a train out to the BEC - the train takes 30 or so mins to get there... so we left for the bus with plenty of time to spare as I did not want to be running late or have to stress about anything. The bus is late. Grrr... There's a problem with Brisbane City Council buses and that day was no exception.. so of course i start to panic a bit.. The bus arrives and we get to the train station.. We get our train tix and are advised that there's a special late service at 11:30pm to get us home [again this proves how lame Brisbane is]. The train ride there was uneventful. I was of course, giddy with anticipation and my fiancee was getting excited but not too much. We get to the BEC stop and walk the 500 metres to the centre grounds..

We pass a toilet block on the way to the main gates.. all the while I'm carrying the plastic bag with all my recording gear.. we walk up to the gates and can see them checking bags and patting some people down... i panic some more.. we walk to the car park so i can pants all the gear but there's security and police [!] there. so we walk 400 metres back to the toilet block and i enter the one cubicle.. which when standing at the trough you can see into... so i quickly pants my gear and walk out trying to look cool.. we line up...

we get to the security guard and she wants to check my bag - no probs then she sees the bottles of drink and tells us to take the lids off and drink it all there. she looks in my fiancee's bag asking if she's carrying any cameras - she says no - there's a camera there.. we get past...

we line up for AGES for merchandise, I buy a tour book and of course, being an aussie, a stubbie [Beer] cooler... we head to the loos for my mrs.. we then head to the gate and she says she has to go again because she didn't go before cos the toilet was too full...

so i wait and chat to the door lady as i want to seem friendly and not arouse suspicion later on. I ask what time the band's on and blah blah.. she says 8:00pm on the dot.... we enter- we are soooooo close.... at 10 to 8 i go "to the toilet". as i'm unraveling everything or try to anyway as my sticky tape won't unravel. as i'm stressing about that I hear an announcement "The Cure will be on stage shortly" so i panic some more... i madly cram everythignin my pockets and roughly get my mics between my shirts and not hanging properly... I go back inside.. 15 mins later no The Cure... so i start to get my stuff ready. I get my pad and pen out [one song per page, that way you dont' need to look at or see what you're writing..] i start to "subtly" arrange my mics having great difficulty getting them out.

Tape starts, I grab the MD and press the Pause and then Record button and set my mobile phone alarm to go off in 65 minutes [80 minute MDs].

The alarm goes off, i change MD before Primary and miss the intro cos of my bumbling fingers. At the end of the the main set i change to the third MD and start recording..

the show finishes and we leave in such a high that i didn't care that the meataxe from the country in the seat behind us said "it was good but i was disappointed that they didn't play lovecats' boy we laughed at that one..

I logged on, posted the setlist at curefans and cure-concerts and went to bed.

The next day i put in the first MD and found that the readout said "BLANK MD" over and over and over i tried to no avail. I fked up the first MD. I must have not unpaused properly.. I was [and still am] completely fking devastated. I blew it. I can't give back to my The Cure mates as i had hoped... I almost cried.. I checked the second and third MDs and the recording is there but the levels were too high and it's a poor listen..

I contacted a guy who has a recording studio but he doesn't have a MD deck and the MD player i have borrowed doesn't have a direct out so for now the recording is stowed away incomplete and terribly sounding in my cupboard. In the near future i will share it out but really it's a piece of rubbish. so much so that i'm embarrassed and disappointed in myself like you wouldn't believe.

So to answer some questions that some of you have, yes there is a Brisbane master and no it hasn't been released yet. but not for Uber-reasons, for shame reasons....

looking back now it is amusing even tho it's fucked up that the show's not re-livable for anyone yet - and even when i get around to sharing it, it's gonna suck\.

the lesson here is this: BE PREPARED.. IF YOU'RE IN THE USA, GO AND BUY YOUR HD RECORDER AND MICS NOW!!! NOW DAMMIT.. THEN GO TO SOME SHITTY BAND'S LOUD SHOW AND PRACTISE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! DO NOT BE LIKE ME!!!

looking back now it is amusing even tho it's fucked up that the show's not re-livable for anyone yet - and even when i get around to sharing it, it's gonna suck\.

the lesson here is this: BE PREPARED.. IF YOU'RE IN THE USA, GO AND BUY YOUR HD RECORDER AND MICS NOW!!! NOW DAMMIT.. THEN GO TO SOME SHITTY BAND'S LOUD SHOW AND PRACTISE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! DO NOT BE LIKE ME!!!